Week 1 Post 3: Neil Gaiman and the Top of the Mountain

I’ve always been a fan of Neil Gaiman, the Writer. While most people encountered his work with his famous Sandman series, I happened upon an often overlooked book Neverwhere, and from that day forward decided that I would read every single thing the man had ever written (and I’ve been mostly successful). Recently, however, I’ve become enamored with Neil Gaiman, the Artist. The main reason? I watched a commencement speech Gaiman gave to an Art school in 2012 in which he discusses…

…everything [he] wished [he]’d known starting out, and a few things that looking back on it [he] supposes [he] did know, and …the best piece of advice [he] ever got which [he] completely failed to follow.

Here is the video:

As my roommate, friend, and fellow blogger Jenn said, this speech is probably the best talk about the artist life there is. Seriously. Well worth the 20 minutes.

As Gaiman says,

Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong – in life, and in love, and in business, and in friendship, and in health, and in all the other ways that life can go wrong, and when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art.

I love the mountain metaphor. Makes it so clear what to say YES to and what to say NO to… of course you have to know what your mountain is 🙂 Mine seems to be an entire mountain range that includes a memoir, other writing projects, art projects, community, some fame/ recognition, and friends.